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What Do Employers Look For In A Graphic Design Portfolio?
If you’re a full-time graphic designer or only want to dabble in design as a side project in your spare time, it’s important that you build a professional graphic design portfolio to show off your work to prospective customers.
A graphic design portfolio is usually the first thing a customer looks at before selecting a graphic artist, so having one is important for demonstrating your ability as a designer.
Blue Sky Graphics helps in creating a portfolio soon after completing the graphic design course online, our students are witnesses of the success this brings in their professional lives, because skills are important but so is a portfolio.
A graphic design portfolio, including a resume, includes contact details and any case studies you choose to include from previous employers.
Simply placed, a graphic design portfolio will help you build your credibility as a designer worth hiring.
1. Curate the finest work and demonstrate a broad range of abilities.
When it comes to curating a graphic design portfolio, our student, a HubSpot Product Designer, stresses the value of consistency over quantity. “I advocate choosing the best projects and having them the primary target on your portfolio page,” she says.
Your portfolio should ideally have your sharpest, most exciting 10-20 creations — anyone looking at your portfolio won’t have time to look at more, and if the first few ideas are impressive enough, they shouldn’t need to. However, it is equally essential that you demonstrate your flexibility to prospective customers. It’s a smart idea to have both logo design and video animation efforts in your portfolio if you’ve dabbled in both.
2. Choose the best medium for displaying your work.
Investing in a high-quality website with a personalised domain URL would pay off in the long term by demonstrating your professionalism to prospective customers. Having your own website allows you to arrange your portfolio to meet more of your company needs; for example, you might have ‘Projects,’ ‘About Me,’ and ‘Call Me’ pages, so people can browse your content and then contact you without ever leaving the platform.
Include a technical case report or customer recommendations if possible.
Our student advised us that writing a case study to supplement the website graphics is extremely beneficial — “Your site visitors will get a sense of your project’s context, the challenge you were attempting to solve by design, and the method you used to arrive at a final deliverable through reading a written case study. Develop strategies take a lot of time, effort, and repetition, and a published case study can help articulate your particular process.”
Consider including the project’s context, the challenge, the process, the deliverable, and the next steps to create a solid case study. We recommend incorporating analysis, experience mapping, identity creation, wire-framing, sketching, usability checking, and iteration in the method portion of your case study
Furthermore, including endorsements from previous bosses, and encourages you to show a degree of integrity, can please prospective customers.
4. Take part in a design competition.
Participating in a design competition will help you get excited, learn your talents, engage with other designers in your culture, and develop your portfolio all at the same time. By challenging you to venture into the design comfort zone, design exercises will help you discover abilities you didn’t realise you had. There are numerous regular, weekly, and monthly competitions that will give you design prompts.
5. Explain the artistic method.
When it comes to interacting with customers, each designer has their own methodology, and the faster a prospective customer learns about yours, the better. It’s important to provide detail so that guests can get a feel of how you deal with obstacles and how the designs overcome real-world issues.
Furthermore, providing an overview of the creative method will assist a prospective customer in determining if you are capable of managing the complexity of their project. For example, they might be sceptical about your abilities to do web design for mobile before they hear about how you brainstormed and designed the templates for another client’s mobile site on your own. Context is crucial in this situation.
6. Show non-client or side ventures.
According to our student, a HubSpot Designer, “Side projects are an excellent opportunity to show your willingness to take action and the capacity to manage several tasks at the same time. They’re also a perfect way to demonstrate any of the more experimental, innovative concepts that you may not be able to demonstrate in your day-to-day job.”
If you’re just getting started, it’s fine to have side projects or non-client jobs so prospective clients can get a feel of your talent and design. Consider using schoolwork, a logo you produced for your aunt’s business, or an internal template you created for your new company – hopefully, your projects will alleviate any questions prospective employers have about your lack of work experience.
7. Contact area companies or start-ups to inquire whether they need assistance with a publicity plan or packaging materials.
Reaching out to non-profits or small companies in your neighbourhood is one of the simplest ways to start developing your client base. Consider doing mock-ups or drawings ahead of time to offer these companies a sense of your ability and vision. Perhaps you believe a nearby diner needs a new menu logo, or you would like to assist a gift shop with their online marketing materials. Ideally, these companies may agree to leave a testimonial on your portfolio in return for your services.
8. Create content about your specific brand, and make sure that it is consistent with all of your personal marketing materials.
Take the time to guarantee that your own publicity documents are consistent and aesthetically pleasing. Create a one-of-a-kind template for the website, then use the same design or logo for other materials, such as your business card and resume. When a customer sees the kind of high-quality work you will do for yourself, they are more inclined to work for you.
